Youthful Sonics face Clippers
SEATTLE — If the Seattle SuperSonics can’t sign four-time All-Star guard Ray Allen to a contract extension, they could lose him as a free agent after the season.
Coach Nate McMillan and general manager Rick Sund also are entering the last years of their contracts.
Seattle’s 37-45 record in 2003-04 was the franchise’s worst since 1984-85. If this year’s Sonics don’t deliver on McMillan’s goal of reaching the playoffs, are major changes coming next summer?
“I can’t afford to worry about that because we have to play,” veteran guard Antonio Daniels said. “I can’t afford to worry about who has pressure and who doesn’t because we all have pressure. We all have pressure to win.”
After missing the playoffs for two straight years, the young Sonics aren’t expected to contend in the Western Conference again this season.
They’ll lean heavily on second-year players like point guard Luke Ridnour and forward Nick Collison, who is really a rookie after having two shoulder surgeries and sitting out last season.
Allen’s situation will determine where the Sonics are headed over the next five years or so. In a blockbuster move, Sund landed Allen in a trade-deadline deal with Milwaukee for Gary Payton in February 2003.
Payton is considered the best player in the history of the Sonics, but unloading the aging point guard for a younger Allen — one of the game’s best perimeter shooters — proved to be a wise move.
Now, the Sonics want to keep the 29-year-old Allen. He’s in his prime heading into his ninth NBA season. After he averaged a career-high 23 points last season, the Sonics opened talks with Allen’s agent.
“Our sole purpose is to see if we can get a contractual extension,” Sund said. “It makes sense for him and us.”
The 6-foot-5 Allen can’t win games by himself.
Forward Rashard Lewis, the team’s No. 2 scoring option, had a career-high 50 points in a game last season. He averaged 17.8 points and 6.5 rebounds in 2003-04, but the Sonics are still waiting for him to be a consistent force.
When Seattle opens the regular season tonight in Los Angeles against the Clippers, McMillan expects a lineup of Allen and Ridnour in the backcourt, Lewis and Reggie Evans at forward and Vitaly Potapenko at center. But the Sonics found out Saturday that they’ll be without Potapenko for six weeks because of a broken right hand sustained in Friday night’s exhibition finale against Portland.
Collison and newly acquired Danny Fortson, both power forwards, will come off the bench, along with guard Ronald “Flip” Murray, forward Vladimir Radmanovic, center Jerome James and Daniels.
Besides Allen, Potapenko and James will be unrestricted free agents after the season. Radmanovic, Murray and Evans will be restricted free agents and Daniels can opt out of his three-year contract after two seasons in Seattle.
It could be another season in transition for the Sonics, who lost six of their eight exhibition games. Led by Allen’s 32 points, Seattle beat the Trail Blazers 91-87 in its final preseason game.
Allen was limited to five preseason games because of a sore lower back and Lewis played in only two because of plantar fasciitis in his left foot. Murray sat out much of fall camp with a strained left quadriceps.
McMillan expects all three to be ready next week although Lewis and Murray were still listed day to day Saturday. The home opener is Friday against Atlanta.
“We’ve got to get better,” McMillan said. “We do need to get our guys back to see where we are.”
The Sonics are pinning their future on the development of Ridnour, the Pac-10’s player of the year two seasons ago at Oregon, and Collison, a first-team All-America player two years ago at Kansas.
The Sonics won’t get much help from last summer’s draft. That was expected when they took 7-foot Robert Swift, an 18-year-old high school center from Bakersfield, Calif., with the 12th overall pick.
Swift has shown promise in practice and played respectably during the exhibition season, but he is considered a project and probably won’t see much action during the regular season.